New Frontiers Cooperative Drilling

This program is managed by the Geological Survey of NSW and is part of a NSW Government initiative to improve our understanding of the state's mineral resources. The New Frontiers Cooperative Drilling program provides grants to successful applicants for exploration drilling programs (Group 1, 2, 6 and 10 minerals only) that demonstrate strong prospectivity, sound financial planning and a proven technical base.

The program supports the long-term sustainability of the NSW resources sector by:

supporting mineral exploration and discovery in NSW that will ultimately ensure a sustainable economic resource pipeline for the state

encouraging exploration activity in greenfields areas that will test new geological ideas and models and/or exploration in regions covered by significant cover

improving our understanding of the state's mineral resource potential, in order to fully realise the economic resource potential of the state

From 2014 to 2017, the program delivered two rounds of grants that funded 50%, 75%, or 100% of drilling metre-rate costs for individual projects, with a maximum of $200,000 awarded per project. Future rounds of Cooperative Drilling will depend on availability of funding.